Split Happens: Tales of life after divorce

St. Patrick's Day, 2016, and I'm watching a grown man wearing a rainbow tutu. He stands on the patio behind Nautilus bar in Kerville, Texas, next to a very tall man with the shortest shorts ever and a T-shirt that says "The World's Most Okayest Marine." Beside them, there's a flight of steps draped with yellow and green streamers and the obligatory shamrock cutouts. There's a pot of gold at the end of those streamers. I wonder where the leprechaun is.

I wasn't supposed to be in Kerrville. I'm supposed to be in New Orleans with my friend Jenn for spring break, but then flooding closed I-10 at the state line. Not to be daunted, we decided to go the other direction, and ended up in Kerrville — the same place that my ex and I had our honeymoon. The fact that I can be here and feel nonchalant about that says everything about where I am, after this divorce. But it feels unreal now. I remember the honeymoon like I remember so much else that happened during the marriage: as if it happened to a different person.

Last week, there was no "Split Happens" because I realized that I turned a corner. I was celebrating the one-year anniversary of my divorce being final and I thought, "you know, I'm just over this." It seems weird. A friendship that lasted for 18 years, a romantic relationship that lasted almost that long, and a marriage that lasted 12.5 years. And now?

It's like it almost never happened. It's so strange, how it all fades. It's uncanny how 20 months can all but erase the depths of that feeling. It's unthinkable that, as much as my relationship with Scott irretrievably changed the course of my life, I'm okay now. It's strange that, up until a couple of weeks ago, it was my what-if person I was snot-crying over and not Scott, and it's strange that now even that emotion is gone.

I've reached a place where I'm good being on my own, a sort of Zen-calm new plateau. I hope it lasts. It fear it won't. But for tonight, I am sitting on the patio outside of Nautilus bar in Kerrville, Texas, and what I feel is peace.

I don't know what will happen to me, to Scott, or to The Great What If. Part of me wishes I could know. Part of me wants to turn to the end of the story, to find out where everyone ends up.

"There are no happy endings," my friend Joni says. "Even if you find your soulmate. You either break up or you stay together until one of you dies."

I nodded when she said it. I believe that, too. Even when I was in grad school in Cincinnati and people began pairing up with their partners, I remember thinking "but those partners could die." People said I was morbid. I just thought it was the truth. There are no other guarantees. None. People think that marriage is forever, but really, it's a trembling, fragile thing. It takes so much to make it work. So much I didn't know.

If I could go back seven years and visit myself, I wonder what I would see. If I could go back to my house in Alvin and peek through the windows, would I cry? Would I sneak inside after Scott, my ex, had left for work and run upstairs and sit down on the bed and wait for myself to come out of the shower and walk back into the room? Would I leave a love letter for Scott from the person I am now or the person I was then, or would I leave a love letter for me?

And if I walked through that door and met myself, what would I do? What would I say to that woman? Would I wrap my arms around her and tell her that everything she is dreaming, everything she is wishing, everything she is wondering about — to some degree, it all comes true? Would I tell her that, one by one, her writing dreams will begin to materialize and her what-if men will get divorced? Will I tell her to watch out, because she's going to have a nutty old time in her forties?

Would I tell her that in seven years' time, she'll have had three dates with a guy she won't even meet until Leap Day 2016? Would I tell her that she'll kiss that guy even though she can't pronounce his name and they will both laugh about it, endlessly? And what if, suddenly, we are both joined by the Kathryn who exists in a year's time, the Kathryn who will know even more than either of us? What would she say? And will either of us believe her?

What I do know is this: It's dangerous to dream. It's dangerous to have glimpses of the future. It's dangerous to invest too much in the picture of what if at the expense of what is and not to enjoy the moment. It's human, but it's dangerous.

A couple of weeks ago, I pledged to stop asking what if. To commit to the now and commit to what is constant for me as a person. Some things, like my love for writing and my love for teaching, don't change. I need to focus on those.

What I do wish, though, is that I could go back to the woman I was a year ago, the woman who posed impishly for pictures with a smile that never reached her eyes. I look back at those photos and I see her fear. Her doubt. Her grief. I look into her eyes and my own well up because I remember that feeling. I may not remember much of the marriage now, but I remember the trauma that ended it.

How sad, in a way that it has come to that. How sad and yet how revealing. I wish I could slip into that car where she's always taking her selfies and put my arms around her. I wouldn't say much. I would just hold her.